This is what happens: Six of your friends, among them people you have known for over twenty years, the people who stayed in the place you left, will show up. They will bring Prosecco and buy books and ask you to read. You will sit around on small chairs in the children’s section of the bookstore and eat sugar cookies and talk about the old days. When finally it is obvious nobody from the general public is going to show up, everyone will endure another white knuckle drive to the next town, where you will encounter many cars stuck in the snow and will attempt to push them out. Because this is a ski town, everyone you see will be glowing. While your East Coast friends happily exclaim how warm it is where they live, your West Coast friends will be ecstatic about this huge dump of snow. They will say they haven’t seen it like this in fifteen years. 

And while you will feel a tiny bit bad about the bookstore not getting a crowd, and know that you have lost money with the long drive over, and missing work, you will realize as snow coats everyone’s hair, that reuniting with the best friends you have ever had is priceless. There is so much more to publishing a book than fame and fortune. There are chances like these, a drive you would never have taken, friends you would not have seen otherwise. 

Thank you, friends.